


The Mother of Luke Smith

by TheSigyn



Category: Sarah Jane Adventures
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-18
Updated: 2012-04-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 13:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4609212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSigyn/pseuds/TheSigyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke’s short life has been filled with love and excitement. But no matter how old everyone says he is, it has been a very short life. Luke is assaulted by jealousy over Sarah Jane’s relationship with Peter Dalton, and he’s too young to even know what that means. It doesn’t help that the Trickster is watching over his shoulder – and means to offer him a life he never thought he could have. Set during The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith and through the two episodes after. Four chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Before the Wedding

  
  
“I got it!” Sarah Jane announced as she came bustling into the room. In her arms she carried a garment bag, and a beaming smile lit her face. “It’s perfect. Simple, yet elegant, the perfect blend of modern and traditional.”  
  
“That’s great, Mum,” Luke said, smiling back at her.   
  
“Would you like to see it?”   
  
Luke wasn’t sure he would, but she seemed so happy. “I’d love to.”   
  
“Wait there.” Sarah Jane dashed off to her bedroom to change into the wedding dress.   
  
Luke sank down on the sofa and squeezed his head in both hands. It was just a few days till the wedding, and Luke still felt as if his legs had been cut out from under him. He was falling, falling, and the ground was so much farther away than he’d expected. He was not used to these kinds of emotions. He was so unused to them that he couldn’t even really give them a name. They were so confusing that he didn’t even want to try.   
  
His mum was so happy. So, so happy. Seeing her so happy was like being given a gift. That should be all that mattered. That should have been wonderful. And sometimes, it was. For short moments, Luke was nothing but happy for her, and his smiles were genuine. But then suddenly it would hurt him to see her so giddy, and he didn’t know why. All of her passionate intensity that was usually directed at a hunt for aliens or an important news story was now directed at wedding plans. The dress, the accessories, the flowers, the venue, the brutally abbreviated guest list — because she hadn’t left anyone enough notice.  
  
An invitation had gone out to Maria. Luke really hoped she could come. He thought maybe he could talk to her about this. He really didn’t have anyone he felt comfortable discussing something so... non-mental with. Clyde always seemed uncomfortable when Luke wanted to talk about anything like emotions. And there were other reasons — probably other emotions he was too inexperienced to name — why he didn’t want to discuss it with Rani.  
  
Maria had been there from the beginning. It was proven that he had a copy of her brainwaves buried somewhere in his neural matrix. That meant she was probably something like a sister, and maybe as a sister he could talk with her about... this. But he was too embarrassed by — whatever that nameless emotion was — to try and talk to her directly on line.   
  
He wished he could talk to Sarah Jane. Usually he could. Usually this was exactly the sort of thing that he would leave to his mum to help him sort out. But she seemed so... _happy!_ He didn’t want to ruin that.   
  
No. He was _afraid_ to ruin that. And he wasn’t sure why. Sarah Jane was his mum. If there was a problem, she wanted to know. So why should the idea of talking to Sarah Jane ever make him feel afraid? It wasn’t that he disliked Peter Dalton. He was a great guy, even Luke could see that. He could see the three of them being happy together. So why did he feel so ill at the thought?   
  
Sarah Jane came out of her bedroom sheathed in the elegant wedding dress. She looked painfully beautiful in it. And so, so happy. His face broke into a smile automatically, seeing his mother looking so beautiful. But then she smiled, almost laughing, looked into his eyes and asked, “Do you think Peter will like it?”  
  
Luke had to close his eyes against the brightness of her smile. “It looks great...” he said hesitantly.   
  
Sarah Jane came over to him, a small shadow of concern touching her happy, happy eyes. “What is it?”  
  
“What?”   
  
“You look... I don’t know.” She shook her head and perched on the arm of the sofa. “Is something wrong?”  
  
“No. Yes,” Luke suddenly said. This was his Mum! He could talk to her about anything. “There’s something... something different... I don’t understand....”   
  
Sarah Jane put her tiny hand on his shoulder. It felt so small. She was so small. He had been almost her height when he’d first been activated. Now he towered over her, and she looked so small. He felt gawky and overgrown and... out of phase, with her. “Tell me. What is it?”   
  
Luke opened his mouth... and he couldn’t say it. So instead he said something else. It was tangentially related, but ultimately meant nothing. “You never used to think so much about clothes,” he said.   
  
Sarah Jane laughed. “It’s a wedding!” she said gleefully. “If you can’t indulge for a wedding, when can you, eh? And actually, that’s not true.When I was younger, I used to spend hours getting dressed sometimes. You should have seen me in the Tardis. There were literally miles of racks of clothes in there, room upon room of virtually anything from any planet, in any time. And still the Doctor only ever wore one outfit. Someone had to utilize it. It seemed such a waste.”  
  
It was rare that Sarah Jane really spoke about the Doctor. Sometimes, if she’d had two or three glasses of wine, she’d tell stories — mostly action packed or humorous — from different planets, or about UNIT missions. But she was completely sober right now. “There was a beautiful white Victorian dress I wore once,” she said, her eyes distant. “The Doctor said that Victoria herself wore it. Though come to think of it, I’m not sure if he meant the princess or not. When I went looking for a wedding dress, I was hoping I’d find something like that. But isn’t this lovely?”   
  
“It is,” Luke said earnestly. “You really are so beautiful, Mum.”   
  
“And you are such a good son, you’d tell me that anyway,” Sarah Jane laughed. “Wait until you see Rani’s.” She stood up and went to her bedroom to take the dress off.   
  
The mail came while Sarah Jane was inside, and Luke flipped through it quickly. Bill, bill, royalty check, RSVP from... “Maria!” Luke tore open the envelope to see Maria’s handwriting on the back of the RSVP card.   
  
Luke’s heart sank as he glanced over the note. Maria wasn’t coming. The hows and whys didn’t matter, Maria wasn’t coming. Which meant he wouldn’t be able to talk with her about....  
  
He figured he’d better tell Sarah Jane the bad news.   
  
He knocked on Sarah Jane’s half open bedroom door and peeped his head in at her answer. He found Sarah Jane perched on the edge of her bed, in the act of comparing photos of flower arrangements that Gita had sent over. She was back in her normal clothing, but the dress was hung up against the back of her closet. It looked like a ghost.  
  
“We just got an RSVP from Maria,” Luke said.   
  
Sarah Jane looked up, her eyes bright. “Yes?”   
  
Luke shook his head. “She’s not coming. Her dad’s really busy, and she’s got finals to study for. It was just too short notice. She says she and her dad will send a wedding present, when they can agree on what to get you.”   
  
Sarah Jane looked mildly disappointed for approximately half a second. Then her face brightened up again, and she shrugged. “Ah, well. Nothing for it, I suppose.” She turned immediately back to the binder of arrangements with an expression so dismissive that Luke was disgusted. This was Maria! Maria, from his very first day. Didn’t she care? “What do you think of this one?” she asked, holding up a photo of a frothing bouquet. “Do you think it’ll match my dress?”   
  
“I don’t care!” Luke heard himself snap.   
  
That was it. The emotion he couldn’t name, leaking out in his voice, and it terrified him. He didn’t know what it was, and now it seemed he couldn’t control it. He clenched his hands into fists and strode quickly into the kitchen to hide his confusion. Whatever that emotion was, it was turning into frustration, and now anger. But the root confusion was still at the back of it, and Luke still didn’t know what was causing it. It didn’t make any sense.   
  
Sarah Jane followed him and automatically put the kettle on. “How about we have a cup of tea?” Sarah Jane asked. It wasn’t really a question. She sat Luke down and waited until the water boiled. She set a cup before him before she sat down herself. “Sugar?” she asked.  
  
He didn’t respond. Finally she dropped the pretense. “What is it, Luke?”   
  
“Why didn’t you tell me about him?” Luke blurted. He hadn’t meant to say it, but she could get anything out of him. He looked down at the table, his brow furrowed with confusion. “It’s not that I don’t like him, it’s just... I don’t understand why you didn’t say. Why you lied.” Her previous explanations had been weak at best, misleading at worst. “I’m not Clyde or Rani. You and I, we live together. I thought that meant something.” He couldn’t bring himself to say, what he was really thinking — _I thought you loved me._ “You know me. I could have kept a secret if you didn’t want them to know. Why couldn’t you just tell _me?_ ”  
  
Her shoulders sagged. She stirred sugar into her own cup and looked down at the swirling brown liquid. “You’re _why_ I didn’t tell you, Luke.”   
  
Luke gripped his tea cup. The hot water hurt his hands, but not enough to burn. It felt like the pain was all that kept him centered. “What do you mean?”   
  
“You’re so young,” she said quietly. “And everything about this, about you and me, this family, it seems so fragile. The others — it wouldn’t have really meant anything to them. They would have teased me and gone on with their lives. But I couldn’t trust them not to tell you if they knew. You’re why I kept it a secret, Luke. I didn’t want you worrying about a potential relationship which might fall through. I didn’t want you forming an attachment to someone who might not be there tomorrow.” She shook her head. “I know what it’s like to have someone pop in and out of your life. It’s not fair to do that to anyone. It was hard enough your losing Maria and her father — I saw how it drained you.” She looked back down at her teacup. “I knew how it drained me,” she admitted. She looked back up at him. “I was risking... something. Risking a broken heart, and I knew that. But couldn’t put yours at risk, too.”   
  
It made sense — which was more than her previous explanations had. “So... it wasn’t because you didn’t... trust me?” Luke asked.   
  
“Oh, Luke!” Sarah Jane reached out and took his hand. It was still almost burning hot from the teacup, but she squeezed it without comment. “I trust you with my life,” she said. “With the fate of the entire planet. How could you think I didn’t trust you?”   
  
“I don’t know,” Luke said. It was all beginning to make sense. The confusion in his heart was mollified. Somewhat.   
  
“It’s going to be wonderful,” Sarah Jane said. “Peter likes you. He really does. And you, you’ll be going off to university soon, and this way, you don’t have to worry about me being alone.”   
  
Luke smiled. He was ambivalent about his plans for university. He was really eager to go and see new people and learn new things, but... he felt torn. Maria would have said that his heart was here. He knew his heart was nothing more than a vascular pump, and that whatever it was that also wanted to stay was somewhere in his brain. “I am glad you’re happy,” he said truthfully. “I’ve never seen you look so happy.”   
  
“I don’t know why,” she said, blushing. “I think I’m just in love.” She stood up and ran her fingers through his mop of hair before she kissed his forehead. “And I love you, too. I’m so glad I can finally give you a father.”   
  
Luke had always rather thought of the Doctor as his father, far away though he was. But the idea of someone else in his life was not disagreeable. Luke had so few experiences, knew so few people. This was going to be an adventure in itself.   
  
But in bed that night Luke lay awake looking at the ceiling. He didn’t typically dream, but instead he usually sorted out the day’s events consciously in his head before he slept — which was what dreams were supposed to do subconsciously. Fortunately, Luke had enough consciousness to be able to achieve this, which was something most humans couldn’t.   
  
As Luke tried to sort out his head that night, he knew that some of that empty, falling, confused, nameless feeling had been abated.   
  
But not all of it.   
  
He wished it would just go away.   
  
  
***  
  
  
Instead of eating himself up, Luke tried to dive whole-heartedly into Sarah Jane’s vision of the future. It was the only way he could think of to quell that nameless ache he still felt somewhere deep in his consciousness.   
  
It didn’t help. No matter how blithely he laughed with Sarah Jane over decisions about the reception, the laughter was forced. No matter how much fun it was discussing Sarah Jane with Peter, there was still something eating at him, deep deep inside. Luke was spreading himself thinner and thinner every moment. And Sarah Jane kept being so mercilessly _happy_.   
  
He felt himself torn apart. Every night as he lay, staring up at the ceiling, Luke felt his heart or his mind or whatever it was rent in different directions. It didn’t make sense. He _wanted_ Sarah Jane to be happy. He wanted it with every flicker of every neuron. He loved his mother, and she _should_ be happy. Peter made her happy. So he had to be glad about this, too.   
  
And Luke intended to. He would do it. He would _make_ himself like Peter — it shouldn’t be hard, Peter was cool. He would _make_ himself be happy -- it shouldn’t be impossible, Sarah Jane was happy. That should make it easy. Luke had control over every synapse, every heartbeat, just about every thought — he thought. He could control this... whatever this was. He knew he could.  
  
But it hurt every second.   
  
It didn’t help that Clyde and Rani seemed somewhat ambivalent about the whole scenario. While they too said they wanted Sarah Jane happy, they seemed to feel that there was something off about her relationship with Peter.   
  
Luke wished he could say he agreed. But he didn’t know. He was young — younger than either Clyde or Rani could ever really believe. It was only Sarah Jane and Maria who really understood that. His experience was so limited. He didn’t know how relationships were supposed to go. For all he knew, this was perfectly normal. And Sarah Jane was so _happy_.   
  
Luke hit the boiling point right before the wedding. Sarah Jane was beautiful, and Peter looked awfully genteel in his suit, and Luke was determined — _determined_ — to be happy about this.   
  
But Clyde wasn’t helping. “There’s something off about this.”   
  
This wasn’t fair. Luke was working so hard at making himself be happy, and Clyde was trying to tear down all his hard work. “Just because your dad turned out bad, doesn’t mean mine will.”   
  
Clyde looked at him with disbelief on his face. “He’s not your dad.”   
  
All of Luke’s frustration and anger surged back through him. No, Peter wasn’t his dad, any more than Sarah Jane was really his mum. Didn’t Clyde understand what he’d just said? No. He didn’t. He took having a mum and dad who had birthed him for granted. And his callus dismissal of the only type of family Luke was ever going to have was like a slap in the face. Angry at himself and Sarah Jane and Peter as well as Clyde, Luke pushed himself into Clyde’s face, in a primal, animal challenge that he’d never before felt any urge toward. “He’s going to be!” he snarled. “Don’t spoil my mum’s day!”  
  
He could see Clyde’s astonishment as it spread across his face. Luke wanted to apologize, and he also wanted to hit him. The minds of ten-thousand souls were layered in Luke’s brain, and not all of those people were peace-loving and calm. Many were violent, abusive, bitter people. Those were not traits which Sarah Jane had fostered in him, so on the whole they tended to atrophy. But with all the confusion circling inside him, his agitation was beginning to bring up poison.  
  
It would get better after the wedding, he told himself. As he and Peter and Sarah Jane settled in and became the traditional nuclear family, mother, father, son. No aliens to hunt down. No secrets to keep.   
  
But Luke was too clever to forget that that couldn’t be true. No matter how “normal” Sarah Jane wanted everything to be, it was impossible. There was always going to be one, big secret.   
  
Peter still had no idea who Luke was. He knew Sarah Jane had an adopted son. He didn’t know that Luke was an amalgamated construct created by an alien race in an attempt to take over the world. He didn’t know that Luke had an IQ that could not be scaled and a telekinetic potential that could pull the very moon out of its orbit. And he had no idea that Luke was less then three years old, and that the only person he’d really loved in his short life had been Sarah Jane.   
  
And now she was getting married. To a man he hardly knew. A good man, but a stranger nevertheless.   
  
The unnamed feeling dragged its claws across his chest. Luke grafted a smile onto his face, and shoved it back down again. Everything would get easier after the wedding.   
  
He was sure of it. 


	2. The Trickster Returns

  
But things never go so easily. Not on Bannerman Road.   
  
After the Trickster showed his hand, after Sarah Jane’s wedding to Peter Dalton collapsed so painfully and so completely, after the Doctor skittered off in the Tardis back to the ether, Luke wanted to believe that it was all over. Clyde and Rani seemed to think so. Sarah Jane did everything to make them think so.   
  
But it wasn’t so easy as that.   
  
Just after the wedding fiasco, Luke was very kind to Sarah Jane. He made her tea and brought her not-quite-spent flowers he picked up free from Gita’s shop. (Sometimes he suspected she gave him fresh ones, since she knew where they were going to, but she told him they were old, and he had picked up enough social graces to let the fantasy lie.) But as kind as Luke was, Sarah Jane seemed wrapped in around herself. As if her heart had grown cold, and she needed to huddle close to feel any warmth. He didn’t want to be angry with her anymore.   
  
But even with the death of Peter Dalton, that unnamed feeling wouldn’t go away. It spawned dozens of other feelings, most of which Luke could name, and none of which he liked. Loneliness. Frustration. Annoyance. Even sadness, which didn’t make much sense. Because anger kept sparking inside him, too.   
  
But he couldn’t let himself feel that anger. Because late at night, he could still hear Sarah Jane crying into her pillow for the fate of a man who was never destined to be her husband... and the repeated loss of an alien who could never again be her companion. She was left with only Luke... and clearly Luke wasn’t enough.  
  
Luke wanted to be enough. Sarah Jane was the heart of his world.  
  
Luke wanted to go in and comfort her. If he’d been ten or twelve, he would have. But he was sixteen — or supposed to be sixteen — and there were social taboos he had not been too blind to notice. Sometimes Luke wished he was female, just so that he could touch Sarah Jane as often as he wanted without it seeming odd or wrong. It seemed unfair that the mother-child relationship had to turn so distant between males and females, due to the general social assumption of sex. Luke didn’t have those kinds of feelings for anyone — not yet anyway. He thought he understood it (he thought that might have been some of the awkwardness he sometimes felt around Rani, but Clyde had it too, and it wouldn’t have been the first time Luke picked up mannerisms from his friend) but he wasn’t sure he had been constructed with those sorts of feelings. In any case, he knew he didn’t have them yet. To discover that Sarah Jane did was also something that bothered him.   
  
It made him feel even more apart from her.   
  
Finally, Luke started to avoid her. She didn’t seem to really notice. He’d say he had homework, or that he wanted to go hang out with Clyde or Rani. He’d help Mr. Chandra after school, or volunteer for the weekend Park Cleanup. It wasn’t until Sarah Jane intended to go and check out a haunted mansion that it really became obvious. Luke gave her a half-true excuse, and told Clyde and Rani to go and investigate without him.  
  
And the worst part of it was, they listened. All three of them, striding off without him, just like he’d told them to.   
  
When Sarah Jane called later that evening to say that they’d be spending the night, Luke said it was fine. Then he went up to his room.   
  
He tried to read. He tried to concentrate on a math problem. He even pulled out a sixth dimensional cube which usually knocked him right into a euphoric mathematical trance state that guided him through what was simultaneously the most challenging and the most relaxing set of logic puzzles that had ever graced the greatest minds of the universe. But even the Gallifreyan Sixth Dimensional Cube couldn’t reach him that night. The unnamed feeling simmered like boiling oil, tearing at him, scalding him inside. Luke threw the cube across the room in frustration. He hadn’t calculated its trajectory — and when did Luke ever throw something without automatically calculating its trajectory? — and it struck his desk lamp, knocking it against the wall. Luke lunged for it, but missed. The bulb shattered, and he knocked his knee painfully against the side of his desk in the attempt. Luke swore — something he almost never did, and he felt deliciously naughty doing it. He did it again, kicking his desk in annoyance.   
  
He’d forgotten how strong he was. His strength wasn’t inhuman, but it was slightly superhuman, mostly due to the care with which the Bane had constructed him. Without meaning to, he had inadvertently kicked the desk halfway across his room. Books and pencils went flying. Luke swore again, and kicked the broken lamp after it.  
  
The destruction felt good. Freeing. But it also made him feel guilty. He knew what he was. He knew how dangerous he could be. He put out the sun — he drew down the moon — he’d been created to destroy. What kind of monster could he be if he allowed himself?   
  
What kind of monster was he already becoming?  
  
This feeling inside him was black and sticky and hot. Loneliness overwhelmed him, and he sank onto his bed, fighting it back. Then he realized something.  
  
Sarah Jane was gone. Clyde and Rani were with her. K-9 and Mr. Smith were upstairs, but they were both computers, and they were both off-line. Luke was utterly alone in the house.   
  
There was no reason to be embarrassed if he should let himself cry.  
  
For nearly a year after he’d been activated, he wasn’t sure he could cry. He was beginning to realize that it was only because there hadn’t been enough inside him to draw it out. But he was getting older, and life had turned complicated. Sarah Jane’s lifestyle was enough to cram a whole lifetime into his short two and a half years. There was no reason to fight it now. For a little while, he could just let himself be only two and a half.  
  
Luke didn’t know how long he’d been curled up in misery before the voice trickled into his consciousness.   
  
“Lu-uke.... Lu-uke...!”   
  
Luke jerked himself up from the floor at that disembodied whisper, his heart in his throat. Ashamed of his tears, he scrubbed them off his face, looking left and right. “Who’s there?”   
  
“You know me, Luke,” said the quietly sinister voice. “You’ve been thinking about me every day. Your dreams have been slaughtered at birth, but your thoughts.... so deeply buried under _so... many... livesss._ ” Misting coldly in the corner of his room an eyeless, cowled figure with teeth like a cave of stalactites formed in Luke’s sight. A painfully familiar figure.   
  
“Trickster!”   
  
“Luke,” the Trickster replied, as if being reunited with an old friend. “Luke Smith. The son of Sarah Jane. But is he really of her flesh? Oh, no. He is so... much... more. So _many_... more. Not a single boy, but the shadow of thousands. A completely unique being, separate from the whole of humanity.”  
  
Luke knew the Trickster knew how to hurt. He refused to let it get to him. “Get away from me.” Luke’s fist clenched, and he considered trying to find a weapon, but he knew there was nothing he could do to physically harm the Trickster. The Trickster wasn’t going to hurt him, either. Not his body, anyway.  
  
“But you _called_ me here, Luke,” the Trickster whispered. “A little boy, desperately crying for his mummy, with the voices of ten thousand souls.” The Trickster laughed, and Luke backed away. He meant to run up to the attic, to Mr. Smith and K-9, but the door wouldn’t open under his hand.  
  
“You let me go!”   
  
“I have no hold over you, Luke,” said the Trickster. “If you truly rejected everything I have to say, that door would open, and you would be free. But you are not free of me, Luke. Because you are not free from your desires.”   
  
“There is nothing I want from you,” Luke growled.  
  
“Oh, isn’t there? Do you remember this?” And an image flashed, half transparent, across the middle of his room. Sarah Jane, standing with Peter at the alter, and all Luke could see was the back of her head as she gripped Peter’s hand.   
  
Luke sucked in a breath, but he kept his jaw tight. “If you think showing me images of how you tormented my mother is going to make me come to you, you understand even less than I thought.”  
  
“This isn’t how I was tormenting... your _mother_. This is how I was torturing you.”  
  
“What do you mean?”   
  
“You already know what I mean, Luke. You’re too clever not to have seen it. It’s been bleeding through all those layers of minds deep inside you. Buried under the souls that were stolen to make you live. Did you think it was only Mr. Smith and her metal dog and her sonic lipstick she was turning her back on? Did you think she’d only forget the Doctor and space and time and the distant magic of other worlds?” He chuckled, almost humming with pleasure, as if he’d seen something charming, like a puppy. “What are you, Luke? Where did you _come from?_ ”  
  
“Shut up,” Luke snapped, already seeing what he was leading to. It was what he hadn’t been admitting to himself, what he’d been dismissing over and over every time it flickered through the deepest corners of his consciousness. He wasn’t going to admit to it now. Not to the Trickster. Luke was shaking with emotions — that unnamed emotion and fear and pain. He didn’t like it.  
  
“You’re not really her child, you know. You’re not anyone’s child. You have never _been_ a child. And you never will be.”  
  
“I know what I am,” Luke growled. “And it’s okay.”   
  
“It’s a lie,” the Trickster hissed. “She says she loves you, but does she even know what that means? Does she care what you feel? Does she understand you, as a mother understands her own flesh? Or is her heart still a million light years away, with an alien in a blue box?” The Trickster smiled. “Maybe she only took you in because you weren’t human. Because you were the _echo_ of the stars.”   
  
“I’m her son!”  
  
“And she was willing to trade it all away for a shiny white wedding and the chance to forget. To be _normal._ ” His head twisted as he stared down at Luke. “Where would that have left you?”   
  
“It doesn’t matter!” Luke snapped. “The Doctor came back, and he made her see the truth!”   
  
“I’m only trying to help _you_ see the truth, Luke,” the Trickster said reasonably.  
  
“What truth?”   
  
The Trickster’s sharp teeth broadened in a wicked smile, and Luke knew he’d fed into his games. He wished he could take the question back, but he couldn’t. “That when she chose Peter, she was turning her back on _you_.” He took a step forward. Luke could feel his malevolence like a blast of hot air, leaving him sick and sweating. “Before there was any ring, before there was any guiding her, she was already turning away from you, Luke. She wanted a different life. A _normal_ life. How could she possibly have a _normal_ life alongside an alien construct? She was planning to abandon you, Luke, along with Mr. Smith and K-9. She was planning her honeymoon, far away — without you. She was planning her life alongside Peter — and without you.”   
  
The Trickster was so close he could have been coming over to kiss him, but the evil miasma that encircled him was already weighing Luke down, creeping into his brain, poisoning his thoughts. “You would have been the real victim, Luke. If the Time Lord hadn’t come and spoiled my plans, do you know what would have happened to you?” He was whispering in Luke’s ear now, and Luke couldn’t move to pull away. He felt like he wanted to vomit. “She would have forgotten you. She had already _chosen_ to forget you. Oh, she would know your name, and that she once called you her son. But you would have been only a burden in her life. Because she could not have understood what you were. She’d only recall a confused history of fantastical nonsense which finally boiled down to one thing — that you are not her son.”  
  
Luke grunted, closing his eyes in the pain of that thought. “And when you finally left,” the Trickster went on, relentlessly, “when you fled, alone, to your university, or just away, far from the distance in her eyes, she would forget you entirely. And when you came back, when you showed up on her doorstep, she’d have glanced past you as if you were a stranger. She wanted to forget her old life of aliens and danger. And you, Luke. You are the perfect child of that life. Where would you have fit in her new one? The new life she wanted so _badly._ ”   
  
The Trickster did not touch him, but the weight of his malevolence grew heavier on Luke’s shoulders, as if he had put his arm around him. Luke staggered under it. His breath was coming hard now, as if he’d been running for his life. “You already know it, Luke.”   
  
“Know what?” Luke whispered, the words falling from him like dying leaves.  
  
“That she doesn’t love you, Luke. _Not like you love her._ ”  
  
Luke’s legs buckled, and he sank down to his knees. Luke loved Sarah Jane with a desperate, pleasant ache of warmth, a love he had built his entire self around. Sometimes it frightened him. Everyone loved their mum, but he knew it wasn’t like this.   
  
Without seeming to have moved, the Trickster was still right there, right beside his ear, breathing poison into his mind. “I can fix it for you, Luke. Do you want to be her son? Her true son? I can do that.”  
  
With a cold trickle, the Trickster poured his power into Luke’s brain. Luke could feel it in his synapses, rending him open. A brutal flipbook of false memories crowded his way into his head — but none of them were his, yet. He saw them all from outside, a catalog of what the Trickster was offering him.   
  
Sarah Jane in a hospital bed, flushed and tired, as a nurse handed her a swaddled newborn infant. “It’s a boy!”   
  
“Hello, Luke!” Sarah Jane whispered to his tiny face. “I’m so very glad you’re here!” The tenderness in her face as she looked down on that baby boy was like a blade straight to Luke’s heart.  
  
More images, offers of memories. Rocking him to sleep in a nursery, humming him a song. Curled up against her breast, his tiny hand wrapped around her finger. A little boy, laughing as she taught him patty-cake. Three years old, as she showed him her telescope, pointing out Orion and Cassiopeia, and telling him all about the fuzzy blur that was the distant galaxy of Andromeda as he stared up in wonder, at the skies, and at his mother. Bedtime stories as he curled up in her lap with a stuffed dog. Rolling around on the floor, tickling each other, playing at lions. Washing his hair in the bath, using the shampoo to turn him into a unicorn, or a bull. Gripping tight to his hand as they walked down a busy street, block after block, his tiny hand so safe in hers. Her soft lips as she scooped him up after school, kissing his cheek as he presented her with a muddy finger painting, as proud of him as if he’d given her the Mona Lisa. Waking up at night with a dream — a child’s bad dream, that real human children had — and padding into her room to be comforted. Curled up beside her in her bed, her hand sleepily rubbing his back as she smoothed the fear away.  
  
All the things a son receives from his mother. The tiny, beautiful intimacies which no one bothers to remember, but which form the basis for every relationship to follow, from friends to lovers and back to children. The mother-child bond which everyone has, so everyone takes for granted.   
  
Luke had never had any of it. And he wanted it. But he was born at fourteen, not as a baby, and he could not curl up in Sarah Jane’s lap, or fall asleep on her shoulder, or lie down beside her in her bed without it being strange and wrong. He only wanted to be her son! But it was too late. He was born running, and it was too late even then. He couldn’t catch those missing years, no matter how fast he ran.   
  
Luke’s tears returned, and he was in too much pain to fight them back.   
  
“I can give you that life, Luke,” the Trickster whispered. “I can give you Sarah Jane as your mother, your real mother, with every hug, every kiss, every infant caress. She would love you, then. You would be part of her. All those extra years, that childhood, with her. I can give you all of it. All I need is your agreement.” Those last two words seemed to hover in the air, like a contract. _Your agreement._ “Do you want it?”   
  
_Yes!_  
  
Part of Luke’s mind had already answered, and it was all he could do to keep from crying it out. He did want it. He wanted it more than he could have imagined wanting anything. With every breath in his body, since he’d looked up in innocence at Sarah Jane’s face less than two hours after he was activated, and asked, “Could I live here?” Every single neuron that had fired in his mind since that moment had been _wanting_ what the Trickster was offering. Sarah Jane. But it hadn’t been an option.   
  
There would never be another chance. No one would ever offer this again. There was no being, no god, no demon in the entire universe who would ever offer him Sarah Jane — his mother, Sarah Jane Smith — as his, completely and truly his own. Oh, he wanted it.   
  
But he was Luke. And this was about Sarah Jane.   
  
Luke felt like he was swimming through hot tar, but he forced himself to look up at the Trickster’s lying face. “And what?” he said. “What if I did want it? What if I did agree?”   
  
“Then nothing,” the Trickster said innocently. “I would give you what you want. No bargains. No exchanges. Just what you ask for.”   
  
Luke stared into his eyeless face. There was something missing. This was the Trickster. It was never that simple. He made himself stand through the weight of the temptation. “But what would that mean?” he said. He walked back and forth across his room, trying to use his intellect — he was good at intellect — to work out what the catch was. Because there had to be a catch.   
  
“She would have had me years ago. I would have been a baby, a child. You can’t take a baby into a war zone. You can’t face down a Sontaran with a toddler at your heels.” He shook his head. “And the Doctor. She said the Doctor fixed K-9 only just before I was born. If she’d had me, she wouldn’t have been free to just go somewhere. If she hadn’t met him again....” Sarah Jane had once given him the impression that the Doctor had been very close to making a very dangerous decision that day. “And what else?” Luke’s mind was whirring, flicking through every true memory of himself and his mad, abbreviated life. “What about me? If I wasn’t at the BubbleShock factory, Sarah Jane would never have met Maria, not properly. And without Maria, no Clyde. And without Clyde, no Rani. All the times we’ve saved the earth, all the times she saved the earth. And me. All the things I’ve done. All of that would be at risk.”   
  
He turned back. “This isn’t about me. This about her. It’s always about her.” Anger sparked in him. “Why have you singled her out? She’s not the only one to have ever saved the planet! Why, out of all the beings on this world, do you pick her to persecute?”   
  
“Because she is a locus point,” the Trickster said. “A hub, where the world and events pivot. And where she touches, she creates more and more like herself, who change the world. Like you.” He tilted his head. “Sarah Jane kindles light, like a fire, and like a fire, it spreads. It spreads into my dominion, infects the chaos I need to survive. But I am merciful. I do not want her dead. I only want her influence neutralized.”   
  
“She’s Sarah Jane Smith,” Luke snapped. “She’s my mum. And she’s too important to be neutralized.” He shook his head. “It’s who she is. That’s the woman I love, and I won’t allow you to lessen her. Not by one fiber.” He was still trembling, but the impulse to agree was gone. The temptation was still there — because the Trickster was right. Luke couldn’t abandon his own desire any more than he could detatch his arms at will. But the malevolent weight of the visions and the heady seduction of the Trickster’s offer was fading.   
  
“It doesn’t matter what I want,” Luke said, looking straight at the Trickster. “What we want never matters with you. You’ll do anything, use anybody. You used her parents and her friend and her fiancee, and now you’re using me. Well, I won’t let you!” His eyes were blurry with the tears as he stared at him. Cursing him, kicking him, shooting him in the head would do nothing. So Luke forced himself to say the only thing that would banish him. “I will _not,_ ” his voice quavered on the word, “agree.”  
  
The Trickster’s face fell. For a face without features, his ability to convey disgust and contempt was astonishing. He straightened up. “Then your childhood dies,” the Trickster said. “And her love for you will be weak and transitory. Enjoy your half life, Luke Smith. You will not get another chance at a full one.” And he vanished, without another word.   
  
Luke was left standing, hot and ill and trembling. He felt so, so alone.   
  
The evening had started with tears, and it would end with them as well. Now Luke knew how his mother had felt, curled up in her bed after Peter’s death. He wished he had come in and comforted her — because he desperately wished Sarah Jane were there to comfort him.   
  
By the time Luke finally fell asleep, he had cried enough tears to have easily matched those in all the years of his non-existent childhood. 


	3. Not Really Talking

  
  
When Sarah Jane came home, Luke wanted to throw himself into her arms and tell her everything, all about his confusion and his resentment and the Trickster; how much he loved her; how he was sorry.   
  
Shame flooded him the moment she walked in the door, and he couldn’t even bring himself to hug her.   
  
Luke’s shame and guilt at his near seduction by the Trickster added itself to the weight of emotions he’d been carrying since Peter Dalton had come into their lives. Luke felt like he was lugging a heavy suitcase, stuffed with a tangled snarl of unfamiliar and unpleasant emotions everywhere he went. It was almost too much to bear.   
  
If Luke had known how to recognize it, he would have realized he’d fallen into a depression. He let his room fade into a state of decay. He had no interest in studying, or even in aliens. He continued to get strait A’s, but that was only because he was so phenomenally clever. But he wasn’t concentrating. There were even a few quizzes he got an A minus on. He didn’t show them to Sarah Jane. She would have realized something was wrong.   
  
He was friendly enough with Clyde and Rani, but the fact that he couldn’t talk to them irked him, so he kept everything superficial, or focused on them and their lives. Sometimes, he even found himself avoiding them, too.  
  
But mostly he was short with Sarah Jane — when he spent any time with her at all. He spent long hours staring in a mindless stupor at the television. Television used to bore him fairly quickly. Now it was rapidly becoming the most important thing in his life.  
  
Sarah Jane endured it for as long as she could, but she wasn’t a fool. Luke was pulling away from her. She could see it. She thought it was normal. She thought he was just growing up. He already had plans to try for the University a year early. Maybe he really didn’t need her anymore.   
  
Maybe, she wondered, he didn’t want her.   
  
Luke may not have realized that his distancing was feeding in to all of Sarah Jane’s fears. Sarah Jane had abandonment issues, and she knew it. It had been getting better these last few years, with Luke. When it turned out that her parents hadn’t really abandoned her, that had been a major turning point. But now he was planning to leave. It felt like he had left already.   
  
Where was her son? Where was the wonder-filled innocence that turned to her for guidance? The miracle boy that had softened her heart, and taught her how to love again? Where was Luke? In his place she had a moody, sulky teenager on her hands, who didn’t want her around, and wouldn’t talk to her.   
  
“I suppose it’s normal,” she said to Mr. Smith after Luke had slid out the door for school without even saying good-morning to her. It sometimes felt as if he wasn’t living in the house at all. “I mean, he’s growing up, right?”   
  
“Luke is still young,” said Mr. Smith reasonably. “There is no reason to suppose that he has turned against you.”   
  
Sarah Jane shook her head. “I don’t understand him.”   
  
“I suspect that there is no one who can truly understand him,” said Mr. Smith. “Luke is unique in all the universe.”   
  
“Yes, but I understand that,” Sarah Jane said.   
  
“That doesn’t mean you understand him, or what he is thinking,” Mr. Smith said. “Since you are human, and do not appear to be telepathic, I suggest you talk with him, and ask.”   
  
“We’re not really talking.”   
  
“Then that is the first thing you’ll have to change.”   
  
Sarah Jane considered this as she folded the laundry. In the corner of the laundry room was a pile of jeans and shirts that were now two sizes too small to fit Luke. Sarah Jane stared at them for a long time. He was growing up so fast! Sometimes she wished she could just press a pause button, and keep him young forever. Or even a rewind.   
  
But even if she had such a device, she wouldn’t have used it. Luke was supposed to change, and grow, and become independent. She wasn’t allowed to keep what she loved... she never had been.   
  
Sarah Jane picked up the laundry basket and went to set it in his room so he could put his clothes away. When she opened the door, she was shocked.   
  
Luke had been a Spartan neat-freak from the moment she’d brought him into her house. She’d actually had to encourage him touch things, to learn. He was more human now, and she was glad of it. But this room was not like him!   
  
She’d glanced in a few times in the last few weeks, and mentioned he ought to clean it, but she’d had no idea it had gotten this bad. Anger rose in her. First he tuned her out of his life, and now he was ignoring her! He’d always listened before when she told him to do a chore. Why was he turning away from her?   
  
It was at that moment that Luke’s voice could be heard down the stairs. He sounded more enthusiastic than she’d heard him in weeks, but it was too late. After nearly a month of the all-but-silent treatment, Sarah Jane had reached the breaking point. “Look at the state of this place!” she snapped at him. “I thought I told you to tidy it!”   
  
“I will,” he said, dismissively, and started to say something else, but Sarah Jane had had enough of him dismissing her.   
  
“When?” she demanded. “Oh, I hate to think how long all these cups have been here.” She picked one up and found it infested with mold. “Ugh!”   
  
“Okay!” Luke said, sounding just like every ambitionless teenage boy she’d ever hated in her life. He didn’t sound at all like her Luke.   
  
“No, it isn’t!” she snapped. She ranted on, throwing everything she could think of at him, and finally ended with the mother’s standby, “I am so disappointed in you!”  
  
It was the first time she’d ever said anything like that, and Luke’s response was filled with the same level of vitriol. “I don’t know what you want from me!” he snapped. “You say you want me to have a normal life, but when I act like a real teenager, you want me to be perfect again. The way the Bane made me.”   
  
She wanted to say she didn’t want him to be perfect. She just wanted him to be Luke again, not this moody, lazy, distant boy he’d become. But he seemed so far away from her just then. “I’m sorry you feel like that,” was all she could find to say.   
  
“So am I,” Luke muttered.   
  
Sarah Jane backed away and left Luke to his moods. There was something she knew which Luke probably didn’t — that fights were almost never about what they seemed to be about. She didn’t really give a snit about his room. It was annoying, but normal. The room was a symptom of everything else. It was everything else which she was really angry about.   
  
And it seemed that she wasn’t alone. Luke was angry, too.   
  
She just wished she knew why.   



	4. Breaking the Silence

  
He went off again the next morning, and they hadn’t said a word to each other all evening. A black cloud of resentment had risen between them, and Sarah Jane hated it. When it became clear that something strange was going on at the gallery, Sarah Jane was glad for the excuse to go to him. If nothing else, she knew fighting another alien monster would at least get them talking again.   
  
But Sarah Jane found herself trapped in a painting via molecular transplacement, and she worried she’d never get a chance to talk to him again.   
  
She was conscious, but completely immobile. She was so glad when Luke and the others found her. The concern on Luke’s face was quite real, and the desperate way he touched her hand was such a relief. She could feel the warmth in his fingertips, how gentle he was. She wanted to wrap her fingers around his, to catch him up in a hug and apologize for every harsh word.  
  
Sarah Jane wasn’t used to feeling so helpless. All she could do was stand in two dimensions within her picture frame and hope for the best. And hope she did. Hoping and praying that Luke and Clyde and Rani were as wonderful and resourceful as she thought they were.   
  
She wasn’t disappointed. With a gradual melting of her stiffness, she found herself crawling out of the painting to her safe corner in the gift shop, and she strode out to find her victorious son.   
  
Rani helped Luke clean his room when they got back, and Sarah Jane followed through on her threat to talk to Clyde. “It shouldn’t have done any harm. How was I supposed to know that an alien monster was going to leap out of a painting and nick it?”   
  
“That doesn’t matter, Clyde. There are some things that this world isn’t ready to handle, even in concept.”   
  
The debate went on for nearly an hour, and Clyde had some good arguments, but in the end he’d apologized. She wasn’t at all sure he was going to listen to her advice about not putting alien artifacts into his artwork, but at least she’d made the point.  
  
She went down to find Luke and Rani almost done, laughing as they organized his models of molecules. Sarah Jane was so relieved to hear that laugh. It almost sounded like her Luke again.   
  
“All right, you,” Sarah Jane said, glancing into the room. “Much better. Thank you for helping, Rani.”   
  
“No problem. I’ll just make him help with mine later.”   
  
“School tomorrow,” Sarah Jane added.  
  
“I know, time to go home,” Rani said. She grabbed Clyde’s arm. “Come on, you prize winning artiste.”   
  
Luke and Sarah Jane showed them out the door and waved goodbye. The moment Sarah Jane closed the door, Luke surprised her by wrapping his arms around her in a fierce hug. He stayed there for a long moment, just holding her in perfect silence.   
  
“Hey,” she said after a moment. “I’m okay.” But she didn’t try to make him let go. He hadn’t hugged her in weeks, and she’d missed it.   
  
“I’m sorry, Mum,” he whispered in her ear. He sighed all his fears for her from that afternoon away into her hair.   
  
Sarah Jane held his hands and stared into his eyes. Still so young. Still so amazing and impossible and deep. No longer quite so innocent. He closed them and hung his head, as if truly ashamed of himself. “It’s all right,” Sarah Jane said. “I’m sorry, too.” She made a move to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go her hands. His hands were so large, and still so soft. Not as soft as his hands had been that first day, but they weren’t the hands of a sixteen year old, either. “Hey,” she said softly. She took a step forward and reached up to touch his face. “What’s the matter?”   
  
“That was the first row we’ve ever had,” Luke said quietly.   
  
Sarah Jane thought about this. “I suppose it was,” she mused. She shrugged. “Had to happen some time, I suppose.”   
  
“I’ll keep my room cleaner, I promise.”   
  
Sarah Jane sighed and shook her head, leading him to the living room. “It wasn’t the room, Luke,” she admitted. “I just... I feel like I can’t understand you anymore.” She sat down on the sofa, and he joined her on the opposite side. “I don’t know when you stopped talking to me. I wish you’d tell me what was wrong.”  
  
Luke wished it, too. But it was hard. It was so hard.   
  
“Is there something wrong?” she pressed. “Or is it just growing up?”   
  
“I don’t know,” Luke said, without looking at her. “I don’t understand it myself.”  
  
“Understand what?”   
  
Luke turned to her, his brow furrowed. “Have you ever had a feeling you couldn’t name?”  
  
“I suppose so. Usually if you think about it hard enough, you can figure out what it is.”   
  
Luke shook his head. “I’ve been doing nothing _but_ think about it,” he said. “And I don’t like it.”   
  
Sarah Jane swallowed, looking slightly nervous. “Did you meet a girl? Or... a boy, I suppose, if you prefer. If so, that’s normal. I’ve kind of been expecting it.”   
  
Luke was surprised. “What? No. No, that’s....” He stopped. He wasn’t blind. Everyone else _did_ seem to think about that kind of thing, all the time. Of course she was expecting it. “I don’t think....” He looked away, embarrassed. “I don’t think I have those sorts of feelings.”  
  
“That’s okay, too,” Sarah Jane said. “This culture is way over-sexualized as it is. And you’re very young,” she added.  
  
“I am young,” Luke said quietly. “And this... this feeling, it doesn’t match anything I’ve felt before. And it’s making me feel other things, like angry, and lonely and... and frightened. And I don’t know why.” It was such a relief to finally talk to her. But it was like pulling out splinters, and each word he pulled from his soul hurt.   
  
Sarah Jane moved her hand, as if she wanted to reach out to him, but she stopped, unsure. He wondered if she’d want to touch him at all once he’d confessed. “Why haven’t you told me this before?” she asked.   
  
“I didn’t know how. You were so happy, and then you were so sad. I couldn’t let this... this stupid thing interfere with that.”   
  
“What stupid thing?”   
  
It was too hard to say it. It was a shameful feeling, whatever it was. He took a deep breath and tried again, but nothing came out.   
  
“All right,” Sarah Jane said. “When did this feeling start?”   
  
“A few months ago,” Luke admitted. “When — when you were with Peter.”   
  
“Oh,” she said quietly. Her face cleared. “So that’s it.”   
  
“What’s it?”   
  
“Well, what does it feel like?” she asked, instead of telling him. “You said it makes you angry and frightened. Why?”  
  
“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “It was like... I was happy for you, but it hurt at the same time. And I liked Peter, but I didn’t want to. But I did want to. It didn’t make sense. And I was scared to talk with you about it, and I’ve never been scared of that before. I’m still scared,” he admitted. “But after yesterday, and today, I can’t let it....” He swallowed. “Anyway,” he said, taking a deep breath. “I thought it would go away, but it hasn’t. And it’s confusing. It just — it eats at me all the time, making me frightened and lonely, and it makes me hate myself.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”   
  
Sarah Jane’s face was soft with sympathy. “It’s called jealousy, Luke,” she said gently.   
  
Luke looked up at her. “I thought jealousy was like when you got an A on a test or won an award, and your friend wishes they’d gotten it, but they’re glad for you anyway.”   
  
“That’s envy,” Sarah Jane said. “And that last part, glad for you, doesn’t always come into it. People switch the words around, but then, they’re not journalists. Envy means wanting something someone else has. Jealousy is when you’re afraid you’re going to lose something that’s already yours. And it is ugly, and it makes you hate yourself, and the people you love, and the people they love. But it’s normal enough.”   
  
“But that doesn’t make sense! Its not like Peter and I wanted the same things from you. I mean, I’m just your son, he was something else. Why would I feel jealous? Clyde and Rani are closer to what I am than Peter was, and I’m not jealous over them! I didn’t think Peter was going to take you away, or anything. Well, apart from your honeymoon.”  
  
“But he was,” Sarah Jane said. “The Trickster’s connivance aside, even if everything had been perfectly ordinary, it would have changed things. It would have changed this house, changed this family. So what we have, what we had, would have been taken away.” She smiled at him sadly. “I was gambling on finding something better. A family with more love is never a bad thing. But it was a risk. I thought at the time you were handling it awfully well. I should have known it was eating at you.”  
  
“But it wasn’t that!” Luke said, and the anger seeped into his voice again. “It wasn’t Peter, I could handle Peter. I mean, he was great — for a man I didn’t really know.” Sarah Jane cringed, and guilt flashed in her eyes for a second. “But you lied to me.” The words were like fire in him. “You lied to _me!_ God, Mum.... where does that leave me? If I can’t trust _you,_ I....” He closed his eyes, his hands clenched on his knees. “I don’t have anything else,” he said, so quietly she could barely hear him.   
  
She wanted to say that he had Clyde and Rani, he had Maria, he had resourcefulness and intelligence and an entire world at his fingertips, but she knew that wasn’t what he meant. Finally, all she could say was, “I didn’t mean for it to hurt you like that.”   
  
Luke looked down. “I don’t like that feeling. Like I can’t trust you anymore.”   
  
“You can trust me, Luke.”   
  
“Can I?” he asked. “I always thought I could. I _needed_ to.” He looked over at her. “Do you remember... what I was like when I first came here?”   
  
“I may not have your memory, Luke, but I couldn’t forget that.”  
  
“I don’t think you can imagine what it felt like. It was like being an empty hard drive. I was able to do anything, but I had no programing, no... no direction. But you, you gave me that.”   
  
“I wanted to give you that,” Sarah Jane said. “I wanted to point you toward happiness, toward goodness, and....”  
  
“I love you,” he said, cutting her off. “God, it sounds so obvious. But it doesn’t... it doesn’t _mean_ the same thing to everyone else. I’ve checked. The first thing I ever felt was fear — running away. And then you caught me, you and Maria, and even that first day, even with all the terror and the confusion, you were like an anchor. You felt no fear, and you just fixed everything. It was like you were a guard rail, as if you’d caught me and held me as I was rolling down a cliff. I felt... affixed to you. And it was like, _There. That. That’s what I was running towards._ ” He shook his head. “I didn’t even know what it was, what I was feeling. But I think I loved you that first day.”   
  
“Oh, Luke,” Sarah Jane said.  
  
“You know, it was completely... overwhelming,” he said. “I mean, I’d never felt anything else but fear. And then suddenly there was _you_. And it hasn’t gotten less, it’s gotten stronger. Oh, hell.” He rubbed at his eyes, more out of exhaustion than anything else. Saying all this was so draining. “Saying it sounds so _weird._ It doesn’t seem to match what anyone feels for _anyone_. And now all the fear’s mixed up in it, and it’s so strong, and it’s just sort of aching. It leaves me feeling so... vulnerable.” He swallowed. “And the Trickster saw that,” he admitted.  
  
“What?”   
  
Her horrified whisper made Luke close his eyes. “The Trickster came to me,” he said quietly. “Alone.”   
  
“When?”   
  
“A few weeks ago,” he said. “When you and the others were off at that mansion.”   
  
“What did he want?”  
  
“What he always wants,” Luke said. “You.”  
  
“And he used _you_?” The simmering fury in Sarah Jane’s voice was palpable.   
  
Luke didn’t say anything.   
  
“Luke. Did you agree to anything?”   
  
“No,” Luke said, so sharply that Sarah Jane knew he was telling the truth, and was upset about it.   
  
She sighed with relief. “You mean you fought him?” she said with pride. “You stood against him all on your own? Luke, that’s amazing. I’m so proud of you.”  
  
“It’s not amazing,” Luke muttered darkly. “It’s just experience. If I didn’t already know what he was, I wouldn’t have refused.”   
  
That hit home. “What did he offer you?” Sarah Jane asked. When Luke didn’t answer she put her hand on his shoulder.“Luke, you have a brilliant mind, friends who care about you, and me. What could you possibly want that you don’t already have?”   
  
Luke’s eyes closed again, and he was so pale he looked positively ill. Finally he opened his mouth. “A childhood.”   
  
His voice was so soft, Sarah Jane had to read the word on his lips. When she’d deciphered them, they felt like being struck with a lance. “Oh, Luke,” she whispered. “Oh, Luke, I’m so sorry.” Luke’s face crumpled as he fought back misery. She wrapped her arms around him, and he buried his face in her hair. “I’m so sorry.”   
  
“He let me see it,” he confessed, his voice cracking. “Little flashes of a life — a really good life. I really, really....”  
  
“Wanted it,” Sarah Jane said for him. “I know what he can do. Oh, Luke, I know. He offers you everything you ever wanted, and he gets into your mind, into your soul, saps all your strength to refuse.” She pulled away a little and looked down at him, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “But you did!” she said to him. “Luke, I am so proud of you.”   
  
“Don’t be!” Luke snapped. “I keep wishing I hadn’t. Are you proud of that? But I said no, and then he took it away.” His voice was definitely cracking now. “He took it away. It was like someone had died. And then I couldn’t tell you.”   
  
“Luke, you can tell me anything,” Sarah Jane said.   
  
“But I nearly said yes!”   
  
“I know,” Sarah Jane said earnestly. “That’s what he does. And when the choice is over, its as if the world has ended.”   
  
Luke nodded in agreement.  
  
“And you’ve been grieving this all this time, all on your own,” Sarah Jane said. “No wonder you’ve been moody. I’m so sorry he did that to you.” She touched his cheek, brushing away the beginnings of tears from his impossible eyes. “My poor Luke. I didn’t know you even wanted a childhood.”   
  
“I didn’t always know what one was.”   
  
“I’ve tried to give you as much of one as I could,” she said.  
  
“But’s it’s impossible,” Luke said. “It’s already too late, isn’t it. People look at me, and they don’t see a boy. They see a young man. I don’t really feel like either! The only way I even feel human is—” He cut himself and rubbed at his eye again. “Is based on you,” he finally finished.   
  
“But what does it matter?” Sarah Jane asked. “I’ve always been so proud of who you are. Why would you want to be something different?”  
  
“For you.”   
  
“I don’t want that.”   
  
“ _I_ wanted it!” Luke said. “Don’t you understand, _I_ want it! I wanted... oh, hell. It’s not going to make sense.”  
  
“Try me.”   
  
“I wanted to be your son, to be held when I was tiny, and comforted when I was sick, and fall asleep in your arms. I wanted....” He sniffed, scrubbing at his eyes. “I wanted to be part of you. I wanted the chance to be little. To be little, and your child.”   
  
Sarah Jane gazed at him sympathetically. “I didn’t have that, either,” she said.   
  
Luke frowned. “What?”   
  
“My parents were gone by the time I was old enough to remember. My aunt Lavinia was very efficient, but she wasn’t a mother. Not like I’m trying to be. She didn’t play with me or cuddle me. I had to learn to do without all that. And I did. But it means I’m not very good at always knowing how to be a mother to you.” She sighed. “I’ve really messed up this time, and I haven’t apologized to you.” She ran her hand through his hair. “But you don’t need to have that kind of a life. What we have is fabulous.”   
  
“Then why didn’t you want it?” Luke asked.   
  
“What?”   
  
“If you’d agreed to marry Peter, you would have forgotten your old life. You would have forgotten me.” He swallowed. “You picked Peter over me.”   
  
“Luke,” Sarah Jane said sternly. “The Trickster had made that deal with Peter, not with me. If he had come to me with it, I would have thrown it in his face. I did throw it in his face, and Peter died for it, and I don’t regret that. It’s a tragedy, but I wouldn’t change the outcome. I would never — _never_ — choose a lover over you.” She took hold of his chin and turned him to face her. “Never. You are my son. You couldn’t be more precious to me, not even if we had shared your childhood together.”  
  
“But I miss things,” Luke said. “There are things I want that I’ll never have. Sometimes I hate being sixteen. I mean, I’m not. I just look it. People assume things about me when they look at me, that I’m looking for a girlfriend, or that I’m supposed to hate my mum. I’m not... I’m not supposed to care about you like I do. It doesn’t match what they expect.”   
  
“Forget people,” Sarah Jane said. “What do people know?”   
  
“The first time I hugged you?” Luke said. “I think that was the first time I felt human. I’d been watching Maria and her dad, and I wanted what they had. I mean, did you ever see the two of them just watching tv? She’d use him as a pillow, or they’d be tangled up together rubbing each other’s feet. It was just so easy between them.”  
  
“They did have a great relationship,” Sarah Jane said. “I envied it, too.”  
  
“Maria thought I should call you Mum, and I didn’t even really know what that meant. But I loved you already. And when I hugged you it just felt right, like it was what I was meant to do.” He chuckled. “I mean, I was still finding my feet, you know.”   
  
“You were barely four days old.”   
  
Luke closed his eyes. “I could have just stayed holding you for an hour,” he whispered.   
  
“Actually,” Sarah Jane admitted. “So could I.”  
  
Luke looked surprised.   
  
“Luke, I hadn’t had human contact in nearly two years,” Sarah Jane said. “Not since the Doctor left with Rose. And before that, it had been more than ten. I was probably the most lonely woman on the planet. To hear you call me Mum was like... I never felt anything like it until Peter gave me that engagement ring. It was _exactly_ the same feeling. This little thrill -- be my family. It was like a gift. Sometimes hearing it still does that to me. I felt so awkward, but when you hugged me — you made it so easy. My innocent, amazing, wonderful Luke. Your heart was so open, and mine had been so sealed shut. I hadn’t realized how much it ached until you came and eased the pain. If I’d thought I could have just held onto you for a day and a half, I’d have done it. I hadn’t felt really human until that moment, either.”  
  
“Clyde mostly tries to avoid his mum,” Luke said. “He loves her, but he stands off. Rani’s not like that with her parents, either. Is it wrong of me to want you to hold me sometimes?”  
  
“No, Luke,” Sarah Jane said. “No, it really isn’t.”   
  
He turned to her, and his eyes held the deepest soul she’d ever seen — even compared to the Doctor. “I love you,” he said. “My friends are important to me, but... I love you.”  
  
Sarah Jane had never realized before how heavily those words rested in Luke’s soul. He’d had so little time on this earth. To love anyone must be so wildly overwhelming it must sometimes be difficult to breathe. “You are my soul, Luke,” she told him gently. “My heart and soul, my flesh and blood. You’re my son. You’re the love of my life. Don’t ever forget that.” She opened her arms and drew him into a tight hug, and it was warm and heartfelt and she didn’t make him let go. “I’ve missed you these last weeks,” she told him.   
  
“Me too,” Luke whispered.  
  
“I don’t know about you,” Sarah Jane said after a moment, “but being molecularly transplaced into a two-dimensional portrait has left me rather hungry.”  
  
Luke pulled away, his face twisted in mock horror. “Oh, God, _please_ let me cook!”   
  
They laughed and went to the kitchen, back to themselves again.  
  
Later that evening, Sarah Jane sat down to watch the news, and Luke sat beside her, holding her hand. After a while Sarah Jane put her arm around him. By the time the news hour was over, they were sprawled halfway across the couch, both of them half asleep.  
  
Sarah Jane almost chuckled. A week ago, this would have been impossible. Three months ago, it probably would have been awkward. It wouldn’t have elicited comment about a mother and son if he’d happened to be seven, or ten. With a sixteen year old, curling up together looked awkward, a little too intimate. But he was two and a half, and they should be allowed to be family any way they wanted. It wasn’t as if anyone was watching them. They weren’t doing anything wrong.   
  
Sarah Jane turned off the telly, and Luke twitched, knocked out of his half-sleep. He squeezed her hand tightly, and heaved a sigh as potent as a sob. Sarah Jane relaxed against him, feeling truly happy for the first time since Peter’s death. It felt good to have Luke, so warm and real and hers. She didn’t need a distant mercurial Time Lord or a perfectly matched lover. She had Luke. Each was all the other really needed.   
  
“Ah, Luke,” she murmured. "I’m so very glad you’re here.”   



End file.
